I have not played video games since the 1970's & 1980's so need some help !

I Have 8 and 9 year old boys as nephews, and they want to get into video games that their friends are playing.....my Sister has finally approved their wish (although they don't know it yet)......so this should be a cool x-mas gift for them from Uncle Scotty !

What do I need to buy them ?

X-box ? PS4 ?? I thought kids could just play over the internet w/a computer these days ?

What are the most popular games, and what do I need to get so they can play them ?

I have heard of League of Legends......and World of Warcraft....and thought those type of games where people play against each other looked fun...so....how do I set them up to access those sites/games ??

Any gaming 101 sites you can direct me to to get up to date on modern gaming ????

How can I jump in a game with them from where I live ? Do I need to buy the same console that they have ??

Are there gaming specific forums (I am sure they are.....but what are the best ones ??)

Thanks for any/all info and sorry for the newbie questions.....

do they have one or two PCs that can handle gaming?

If not, is mom planning on getting them a console and you supply games, or..?

They only have one PC in the house (moms), so they would need their own I suppose.

Plan is for me, my other sister, and her (the mom) to all chip in and get them set up on what ever they need....

....but we are all from the Atari and Pac-Man era

Likely depends on what their friends have and play. Maybe ask other parents?

Lot of good options for that age on games though, like Minecraft is popular among the youths I think.

I have two boys 8 and 6 and they do most of their gaming on their ipads between Terreria, Minecraft,Five NIghts at Freddy's and Roblox. Lots of games, most are free to start and then pay to upgrade things in game. It's great because when their friends come for the afternoon or the night they can play together with up to 7 or 8 in a game, so no fighting for controllers. Saying that we don't have a PS4 or XBONE (getting one for XMas) but they do have a WiiU, 360, PS3 and 3DS' but by far ipads get the most use. Can't comment on PC gaming as I or they really don't do it.

Good feedback.....thanks !!

I am learning about gaming in the modern world as we speak !

Whole lot different than back in my day

they are the perfect age for Minecraft and it will keep them busy for hours. What games are their friends playing?

yea, we took the advise of Noodle and asked the other parents. Looks like they are all playing MineCraft, like you & tommyd say !

Trying to figure out if they should get x-box or i-pads.

Looks like League of Legends is for kids a bit older.

xbox or ps, depends on what their friends play on. If they all have the same console and the online service ($50-60 a year), they can play together via internet. I'm pretty sure you can set it to known-friends only, for the protection of minors

I'll add one more Minecraft endorsement

it's fun and kids can learn a lot from it

I'm horribly biased, but I think PC is the right play.

You can get a very nice starter PC setup for the price of a console, and by doing so you open up the kids to the wonders of Steam and tons of great games at a fraction of console prices. For Xmas and borthdays in the future, just feed them Steam cards. Shopping list: done.

Do Consoles even really have "2-player" games these days? Nintendo maybe, I'm not sure. I was under the impression that a lot of console offerings are just pushing you to play over the internet with other people, not so much with a couple controllers on a couch. Maybe sports titles.

The first question you need to answer is: what is the budget?

My 9 year old daughter likes Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddy's, and dabbles in my shared Steam library. Plants vs Zombies, Portal, Dungeon Defenders, indie games like Lightfish, Bit Runner, etc. I have hundreds of titles, many of which were picked up for >70% off.

From a pure value perspective, PCs blow consoles out of the water, but you need to have someone capable of doing initial setup. The good news is that it's incredibly easy.

If you want to give your nephews the 80s experience, you can easily use a PC to emulate all the old stuff as well. I have quite literally thousands of old games from NES, Atari, SNES, Arcade, Sega, Neo Geo, etc on my media drive that get shared with PCs throughout the house. I'll warn you, my own kids never really got into it. A couple SNES and Arcade titles interested them, but the old school stuff largely wasn't appreciated. I may have hurt them by providing too much to choose from, however. When you have all 721 official SNES games to choose from, as well as some unofficial ones, where do you even start? It's likely that you'll pick something ****ty at random, and they'd wind up going back to TF2.

I have a large office in my house where I have enough modern-gaming computers for everyone to use at once, but that might not be in your budget.

How tech-savvy are you? There are resources on the internet to help with the building process. Such as Reddit.

Building a computer requires two things: small amounts of patience, and a screwdriver.

You do not need to get fancy aftermarket coolers. You don't need cases with 40 LEDs and other gimmicks. You won't need bleeding-edge tech on the inside. You can put together a solid $350 box and have kids playing games at console-quality or better (probably better). The added cost becomes peripherals. You can get them no-frills mouse/keyboard/headset.

If ALL their friends are gaming on an Xbox, then tell them to find new friends. =)

Thanks for the tip on Steam !

I had not been aware of that till this post.

I was just checking out DOTA 2 stuff on that site.

From my few days of research, while I see a lot of debate on the issue, I am leaning at your suggestion of The PC platform vs console.

I was also watching a player named Slinned on Twitch and what he does on Minecraft. HOLY COW !! I asked him a bunch of questions on his Twitch Stream about MineCraft and he was nice enough to answer.

We will most likely be setting them up w/PC's and Minecraft and then monitoring how they like it. I expect the older one will really enjoy it. Whenever he watches me play online poker he is FASCINATED and always wants to play but my sister of course does not want him anywhere near anything gambling related.

I actually downloaded League of Legends myself, created an account, and played a tutorial game just to see what the modern gaming world has been up to. lol. It's different.

I would love to recreate all those 1970's/1980's games I played as a kid on my PC........but might even dabble in some modern games just to keep up to speed w/what the kids are doing

Based on what I've seen over the last couple days I am excited for him to explore this new (to him) (and to me I suppose) digital gaming world....

Yes, pc is the best option for gaming by far - the only reason to get a console is if their friends are playing console-specific games or there are console exclusive games that they really want to play.

You can find a ton of fun and cheap games on Steam and other services and Minecraft is infinitely more fun when you can use the incredible amount of awesome mods that are available for it on pc.

As someone who started gaming in the 70s/80s too (and have kept it up ever since), I can vouch for this being a great time for you to get back into gaming too btw Get a decent pc (if you don't have one already) and let us know what kind of games you used to like and I'm sure there'll be a lot of suggestions for games you like

Also a somewhat biased opinion, but if you're going to learn to play a League of Legends / Dota style game, pick Dota2.

One thing you must be vigilant with on PC gaming is the "free to play" games that can wind up costing you a fortune.

For my own kids when they first started out, I gave them a lot of leeway, and they wound up spending large sums of money on Team Fortress 2 cosmetics/guns.

League of Legends, while technically free to play, requires that you pay cash to unlock gameplay options, or sink hundreds and hundreds of hours into unlocking them by grinding in-game points. There is a pool of characters every week that is free, but you pay money to gain access to more. Dota2 is truly free to play in the sense that you get ALL of the gameplay content for free, but you can pay money for costumes and compendiums, neither of which have any impact on core gameplay. Different pricing models affect the gaming experience as well. Dota heroes are all unique. On paper, ALL of them are "overpowered" in some way, and this works because there are 110+ options to choose from, so counterplay is possible. In League of Legends, because many people might not have access to the entire hero pool, there is a lot of homogenization. If the free hero pool of the week contained a lot of "paper" heroes, it wouldn't be fair if one of the pay-to-play guys had access to scissors and just tore everyone up. It's been years since I've touched League, so maybe improvements have been made on that front. A quick Google search says that if you bought all the available Heroes, it would run you more than $700. That's a lot of scratch to gain access to all of the in-game content in a "free to play" game.

There are a lot of other PC games that follow the League of Legends model. It's about being an educated consumer.

So while it's fine that my kids wound up spending a bunch of money on TF2 hats, I've tried to get them into the mindset of instead using their funds to expand their gaming horizons. My 14 year old has an extensive Steam wishlist, and gets e-mail notifications when things go on sale. He's got dozens and dozens of games now, and has picked many of them up for deep discounts. My daughter is perfectly content playing a ton of Minecraft and piggybacking on my library for the most part. The eldest is 18 now and still mostly plays TF2. To each his own.


If you are interested in playing old arcade and console titles, my personal suggestion is to use RetroArch. It's extremely powerful, albeit moderately difficult to set up. There are online tutorials available.

PCs do more than gaming, though!

Almost a decade ago I dumped TV and went to a full streaming household. I have Home Theater PCs attached to all the various TVs in the house, each with access to a central media server. Instead of a $175/mo cable bill, I pay $60 for the best internet package, and spent $250-400 on PCs for each TV. I overpaid for the boxes. You can do a lot with $35 Raspberry Pis these days. All of those boxes are capable of streaming 1080 video content from the web, but they also have access to thousands of movies and tens of thousands of hours of TV shows on my Media server. No commercials, super easy-to-use interface. Kids watch Netflix in the living room, or just use a wireless mouse/KB to navigate YouTube. Each TV has access to the ROM library as well. I use Wireless Xbox360 controllers in most of the house, but a Steam Controller in my bedroom. I can load up Super Mario Bros 3 in the living room, save it, then go upstairs to the bedroom and start right where I left off. I spent a little extra on the box I have in my bedroom to be able to play many of my Steam titles from bed at decent settings, but with Steam in-home streaming, I think that can also be done with a much less expensive machine. The In-home streaming lets me use the horsepower of my primary gaming PC in the office and stream the video/controls right to the TV in my bedroom at quality levels higher than what the actual box in the bedroom is capable of. I played a lot of Xcom this way, but I also play platformers/twin stick games from bed. The TV is too far away to read small text, and bed isn't really the place for a mouse/keyboard. There's no noticeable input lag, but I'm sure the graphics take a small hit.

In short.... **** consoles. Honestly. Also, there simply aren't enough hours in the day.

Thanks for the tips & info !

As a kid, I liked peddling my Huffy down the street to the local pizza shop that had a wall of Arcade Games....pumped Quarters into games like Asteroids, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Defender, Galaga, Frogger, Missile Command, Pole Position......going out to the mall or Arcades was the only way I could play.....and it was a blast.

Finally got Dad to break down and get me & my sisters Intellvision for playing games at home. Remember Intellivision?!?!

Had a slew of those games.......Dungeons & Dragons, AstroSmash, Atlantis, Space Armada, and all the sports games......Basketball, Football, Baseball, Hockey.......loved playing Football one on one vs. my best friend back then....

That got me through the 70's and early 80's. Once high school started I got busy with sports after school & that was pretty much it for gaming. Never really gave it another thought till I started playing online poker @PokerStars and started jumping on these forums and reading people talk on the side about gaming. Have dabbled a bit w/Facebook Games like Words with Friends, Backgammon, and online Chess........which piqued my curiosity......then watching/hearing my nephew start talking about video games got me to take the current closer look at modern gaming that I am doing now.

I love what I saw on twitch about Minecraft and think he will have a blast with that to begin with....

I think I may try LOL, but perhaps DOTA 2 instead based on this feedback. I have friends my age that play World of Warcraft and they seem to love it....

I was shocked to see that gaming has tournaments for big prize money these days....

Thanks for all the info......any future tips appreciated as well !

P.S. - What would you describe as a decent PC set up for gaming these days ?

For the build, your first question needs to be "what's your budget?"

Here are my gaming-related components:


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($329.88 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($153.89 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill TridentZ Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($164.99 @ Jet)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.78 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($292.20 @ Jet)
Case: Antec Twelve Hundred V3 ATX Full Tower Case ($149.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 1000W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($186.01 @ Jet)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit ($128.89 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: BenQ GL2760H 27.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor ($149.00 @ B&H)
Monitor: BenQ GL2760H 27.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor ($149.00 @ B&H)
Keyboard: Das Keyboard Model S Professional Wired Standard Keyboard ($155.19 @ Amazon)
Mouse: Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse Wired Laser Mouse ($39.99 @ Best Buy)
Headphones: Logitech G35 7.1 Channel Headset ($69.05 @ Amazon)
Speakers: Logitech S120 2.3W 2ch Speakers ($11.98 @ NCIX US)
Total: $2224.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-06 14:39 EST-0500


I bought a GTX 1070, but actually gave it to my son for his birthday instead of handing the 970 down. His old card was truly awful. This computer is probably capable of 4k gaming, but I don't have 4k monitors. Those are expensive.

I don't know your finances, and there are certainly kids who get ridiculously expensive Christmas presents, but I assume you aren't going to be spending $2k+. If I had $2k to spend today, I would spend it differently than seen above.

I'll go do a couple minutes of checking and post a console-busting budget build in a post below.

Edit: Also, I tend to buy components from Amazon and Newegg only. That means you'd spend a tiny bit more than you see above.

You should try Rocket League Needs a controller though, but an xbox-controller is not that expensive and works without any hassle with a windows pc.

Okay I lied. I didn't put on my poorest hat.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($104.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI H110M Gaming Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($62.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($52.30 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($94.75 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Mini Video Card ($138.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($57.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($88.58 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Asus VX238H-W 23.0" 1920x1080 Monitor ($105.98 @ Newegg)
Keyboard: Logitech K120 Wired Standard Keyboard ($9.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Mouse: Cobra E-3lue Wired Optical Mouse ($9.13 @ Amazon)
Headphones: Logitech G430 7.1 Channel Headset ($39.99 @ Best Buy)
Speakers: Logitech S120 2.3W 2ch Speakers ($11.98 @ NCIX US)
Total: $807.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-06 15:15 EST-0500

The above $800 setup will play absolutely anything a teenage kid could throw at it at the highest settings in 1920x1080. I'm certain that dollars could be shaved off the total. Cheaper case, smaller SSD, pirated/student discount on Windows, dump the headset and buy a desktop microphone. That's an easy $170+ savings.

If you really want, I can go look up the cheapest way to get 60FPS on 1080 for most modern titles. There are people that truly get off on this PC Master Race stuff so I'm sure they could do better.

Now, an Xbox One starts at what, $300? 350? You'll need to buy games, something to play it on, and the Xbox Live membership. I don't know how much used console games are, but I do know that you can easily save at least $20 on every single brand new one by getting digital download codes for PC vs buying a console disc. That adds up.

I have to go get some actual work done, but I'm happy to help later.

WOW !

Thanks for the help Inso.

At this point we are definitely going the PC route. If we ever got an x-box it would be for something specific that we cant get on PC I am thinking....

We have a spare Dell PC available to us; (Basic keyboard/mouse/earphones/and speakers)

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4160 CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3600 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s),
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 7.92 GB
Available Physical Memory 5.18 GB
Total Virtual Memory 13.4 GB
Available Virtual Memory 10.5 GB

Disk Size 931.51 GB (1,000,202,273,280 bytes)

Intel(R) HD Graphics 4400
Resolution 1600 x 900 x 60 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32

Realtek High Definition Audio

....not sure if it would be adequate for kids games and/or more advanced games like DOTA2.....perhaps we can use this, perhaps not........

I downloaded LOL on it, and played just a tutorial game and it seemed to do ok.....but thats just one game, and not the full range of options I suppose...

Not sure if this PC is adequate for gaming or not.....might have to do some shopping At this point, I think I am shopping for him.......AND me

Thanks for the help !!!

What you have there is what is referred to as "on-board" graphics. You have no GPU, but you're running from the capabilities of the i3-4160. My HTPCs are largely set up this way. I bought i3s or AMD APUs for them and just use on-board graphics. I wouldn't run a true gaming PC that way, however.

Here's a comparison between the stated CPU and the one I linked earlier. You can see that they are pretty close.

Dell desktops are hit or miss on upgrade capabilities, but if that motherboard has an open PCIe slot, you can throw a solid graphics card in there and be more than set for some gaming.

Do you have a more specific Dell model number to work with?


Edit: Also, LoL will certainly run on the PC specs you listed above, because it's a pretty old game engine. That would also run Minecraft without any hiccups on the "highest" available settings. Still, installing a proper Graphics Card will give that PC more power than a modern console by a large margin. Your hard drive is mechanical, not solid-state like I spec'd out, but that's also not the end of the world. The kids will just have to deal with slightly longer loading times. As a bonus, they'll be able to install way more stuff than a SSD could hold.


Edit2: I was going to touch on the breakpoints and "new leaps" that you get with PC gaming in an earlier post, but figured that would make it obnoxiously long. Your Dell is built with a "LGA 1150" motherboard. That's just a CPU socket type. The newer version is LGA 1151, which is the type you'd need to run the i3-6100. LGA 1150 vs 1151 is close enough to not matter in the context of a budget build, but you'd obviously hit a hard ceiling with the Dell much faster than with a newer LGA 1151 motherboard. Some Dells use surprisingly high quality components, so I'm curious what the motherboard is in there. If you don't have a PCIe 2.0/3.0 slot on it, that would be very unfortunate. =/

Quick note (apologies if I missed it somewhere above): Steam has a family mode where you can restrict kids' access to whatever you'd like. I have it setup so that my kids can only see the games I want them to see, they can't access the store, and they can't buy anything in-game. I just use a 4-digit PIN when I want to play "my" games.

I'll third, fourth, or whatever the Minecraft vote. I have two kids - one just turned 10, one turns 8 next week - and they love it. My 8-year old isn't too into it at the moment, but he's flighty and switches game interests almost weekly. We have two desktop PC's so earlier this year, I bought a second copy of Minecraft so that they could play together. We also started letting them play with friends, but only with real-life friends and only in private "realms." Nothing public.

My 10-year old is incredible with the stuff she creates in that game.

the multiplayer capabilities of console is why i thought minecraft on a ps4 or xbone or whatever would be preferable. It works under the assumption that the kids would like to be able to play together from the get go

......thats a good point, I am sure the 8 year old wants to play minecraft with his buddies from school....can minecraft be played multiplayer w/PC ?

Yes for online, but if you also want to play locally you need multiple computers

Whereas one Xbox can handle local or online multiplayer, if that's clear.

I feel like I'm writing this poorly.

This is the spare PC we have....we can add to it, or get another if needed....

System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Inspiron 3847


Host Name: LIVINGROOM
OS Name: Microsoft Windows 10 Home
OS Version: 10.0.14393 N/A Build 14393
OS Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration: Standalone Workstation
OS Build Type: Multiprocessor Free
Registered Owner: Microsoft
Registered Organization: Microsoft
Product ID: 00326-10000-00000-AA864
Original Install Date: 9/3/2016, 9:13:27 PM
System Boot Time: 12/6/2016, 3:28:20 AM
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Inspiron 3847
System Type: x64-based PC
Processor(s): 1 Processor(s) Installed.
[01]: Intel64 Family 6 Model 60 Stepping 3 GenuineIntel ~1000 Mhz
BIOS Version: Dell Inc. A05, 8/18/2014
Windows Directory: C:\WINDOWS
System Directory: C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
System Locale: en-us;English (United States)
Input Locale: en-us;English (United States)
Time Zone: (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Total Physical Memory: 8,109 MB
Available Physical Memory: 5,086 MB
Virtual Memory: Max Size: 13,741 MB
Virtual Memory: Available: 10,383 MB
Virtual Memory: In Use: 3,358 MB
Page File Location(s): C:\pagefile.sys
Domain: WORKGROUP
Logon Server: \\LIVINGROOM
Hotfix(s): 7 Hotfix(s) Installed.
[01]: KB3176935
[02]: KB3176936
[03]: KB3176937
[04]: KB3199209
[05]: KB3199986
[06]: KB3202790
[07]: KB3200970
Network Card(s): 3 NIC(s) Installed.
[01]: Dell Wireless 1705 802.11b|g|n (2.4GHZ)
Connection Name: Wi-Fi
Status: Media disconnected
[02]: Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
Connection Name: Ethernet
DHCP Enabled: Yes
DHCP Server: 192.168.1.1
[03]: Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
Connection Name: Bluetooth Network Connection
Status: Media disconnected
Hyper-V Requirements: VM Monitor Mode Extensions: Yes
Virtualization Enabled In Firmware: Yes
Second Level Address Translation: Yes
Data Execution Prevention Available: Yes